Sirius was furious.
He was full of fury. Fury at his family, fury at himself, fury with the sorry slice of life the universe had seen fit to saddle him with. And he was furious with his misfortune to be a part of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Practically fucking royalty, he thought bitterly.
But he was also proud.
Proud to be different, and proud to go where no Black had ever gone before. But what's the point? His shoulders slumped and he lost a little of his regal bearing. That's why I'm in such deep shit isn't it? He shivered a little as he turned to face the golden lion roaring on a deep crimson field. He could feel its eyes boring straight through to his soul, to his heart. His lion heart. And it ignited a spark in the cooling embers of his heart, and the darkness left his vision as a heavy weight lifted off his chest, and he knew it was never coming back.
It drove out the Blackness in me. There is no more room for that. And it tore me apart.
Apart from everything I ever knew.
Bella's snide remarks, his mother's pointed barbs, this cool smirk of Narcissa's and his brother's smug arrogance. They were family. But what sort of family were they? He never did fit in, and fear was what had kept him chained to the darkness for so long. But his lion heart beat fiercely and it gave him the courage to break free. Hear me roar, he thought. I'm not a puppy anymore.
So he packed up his things, fixed the old motorbike in the attic and… tweaked it a little, and shut the door on his childhood. He even left a lit cigarette in the drawing room, in case his mother or Bella felt like doing it slowly, and torturously.
Bella's poisonous glare when they locked eyes on the train two weeks later was all he needed to know that he had made the right choice.
Black by name, but not by nature, and it feels good to be free.
